Among Other Impossible Things
by Thego
Summary: Syfy Alice AU. Alice Kingsley arrives in Wonderland a couple years after Alice Hamilton left, where the government has fallen back into dysfunction. Together with her ragtag team of rebel Oysters, Alice takes a stand against Duchess and Jack Heart.
1. Down the Rabbit Hole

What you have to understand is, when you're walking through an empty alleyway in the middle of the night, there is always a risk that you'll be jumped. Mugged, raped, murdered, none of these are out of the realm of possibility. This is the reason people try to stay away from being in that type of situation whenever possible. Its why most people freak out and run when a cat knocks over a trashcan, and its why they ask their friends to go with them when they absolutely must walk around the abandoned corners. Men used to walk their dates home because of the things in the dark.

Heed my warning: you should never go through an unpopulated alley at night, even if you're in a huge hurry and its the quickest route.

But you're really, really in a hurry tonight.

You walk quietly, your head down so you can avoid stepping in any puddle of questionable origins. You look up just in time to collide with someone- he's tall and there's just enough light for you to kind of see his face. For a moment, you wonder if maybe he's a serial killer, but then he mumbles an apology and keeps walking. You count his footsteps until you can't hear them anymore, and then, just to be safe, you turn around to make sure he's really gone. That's when you feel something prick your neck.

You whirl around, limbs flailing in an attempt to hit your attacker, but then there are two, three more on you, all holding you in place and you can't move. Someone's holding something soft over your mouth so you can't scream, but you don't need too. You've always counted six impossible things before breakfast, and this? This is simply the seventh impossible thing of the day. You can take on these four men (well, you say men, but you mean people, because you haven't gotten a good enough look at any of them to confirm their gender and you don't want to be sexist) single-handedly. But even as you resolve this, you feel yourself getting tired and your eyelids droop and you stop fighting.

Your eyes drift towards a girl half-hidden in the doorway a few yards away, watching the scene unfold through wide eyes. You know at this point it barely matters whether she's real or if she's imaginary, too, and your last thought before the world goes black around you rings through your head:

_I bet that guy stole my wallet._

* * *

A/N: Hey guys! Hope this wasn't too confusing, I promise everything will be clearer as the story progresses, and as a bonus, I'll stop talking in second person. xD I know I have some updates to make for my other stories, but I wanted to publish this first, because the number of OUATIW fanfics out there is kind of depressing. Please leave a comment letting me know what you think! (:

Oh, also, I'm gonna try and work in all the OUAT in Wonderland characters as best I can, including Cora and Jefferson. As far as Syfy Alice characters go, expect Jack and Duchess, and possibly Alice.


	2. Welcome to Wonderland

You wake up with your face pressed uncomfortably hard against a rough wooden floorboard. You sit up slowly, the throbbing pain in your temple subsiding somewhat as you do so. You look around and one of the first things you notice is the man who's sitting with you in the box, in the corner opposite you. It takes you a second, but you do recognize him.

"Its you!" you exclaim angrily as you try to stand up, only to bump your head against the low ceiling and reluctantly sit back down again. "Give me back my wallet," you demand.

He looks at you funny. "I think money's the least of our problems right now," he replies, drawing his knees closer to his chest. This is when you notice how pale he looks. He's doing well at keeping his poker face on, but his jaw is clenched shut tightly and he's shaking slightly. You tilt your head, dropping your guard only slightly.

"Are you alright?"

"Apart from the fact we're trapped in a tiny wooden box dangling over a large body of water, you mean?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

He groans and says nothing in response; he just gives you a strange look and leans his head back against his side of the crate. Your boredom soon outweighs your concern for him, so you turn and push against the wall behind you, testing it.

"What're you doin'?" the thief sits up quickly, panic lacing his voice. "Did ya miss the part where I said we're dangling over a large body of water?"

You press all of your weight into the boards, then. "I heard you." Finally, you stop pushing, taking a moment to catch your breath. "The walls are stronger than they look."

"Bloody hell, you're insane."

"There has got to be some way out of this," you mutter to yourself, your eyes exploring every crack and crevice in the woodwork of your prison. You test the other walls, then the ceiling, then the walls again, until your companion says irritably, "Would ya stop moving so much? I'm sick enough as it is, the last thing you want is to make it worse."

You sit back down, mostly because you'd rather he not vomit in such close quarters with you, and in doing so your attention is drawn by his exposed left ankle. That symbol, you've seen it before. "Your tattoo," you say, "What is it?"

"How 'm I supposed to know?" he shrugs. "Woke up with it. You've got one too, you know." He points to your face. "Over your eye." Your hand immediately goes to your face. "Other eye." Tentatively, you touch under your right eye. "There." You rub at it, a bit, then glance at your finger. "I don't think it'll come off that easy, mate."

"I'm not your mate," you snap. "You stole my wallet."

He sighs, then reaches into his back pocket before tossing you the wallet he'd taken last night. "Not really any point in keepin' it now, I suppose, given the circumstances." You give him a skeptical look and open the wallet, sifting through its contents before stuffing it down your shirt, because today of all days you chose to wear something without pockets.

"So," you say, "where are we?"

"Dunno. Woke up in here, same as you. My best guess is I got jumped last night, just after I ran into you."

"Right after you _stole_ from me, you mean."

"Listen, you're gonna have to get over that. I coulda done a lot worse," he says pointedly, glancing around the box.

You narrow your eyes. Forgiveness has never been your strong suit, but he seems genuine enough, and given that the both of you are stuck who knows where for who knows how long for who knows what reason, you don't see the harm in making an exception, at least until you get out of this thing. "Fine."

"Good. What's your name?"

"Alice."

"Nice to meet you, Alice, I'm Will," he says without any sort of friendliness in his tone, and for that you're thankful, because you don't particularly want to be his friend.

Neither of you really feel like talking too much, which is alright by you; you've always preferred to be alone. You close your eyes for a while and imagine you're in a land where nothing makes sense. The rabbits are always running late, cats can smile, and mushrooms have the power to make you grow and shrink. You imagine the queens who rule this land- one thinks of life as a game of cards, the other rules as though the world is her chessboard. You think of the tea-parties and falling stars and marshes made of mellow. You know this place well; you've dreamt about it every night since you were a child. A place so full of miracles and impossibilities that you've named it 'Wonderland.'

It feels like a lifetime has passed before whatever it is carrying your box starts to slow down and gradually lower towards the ground. You sit up- if you want to get out of this, this is your best chance. You have to be ready for anything when this crate opens. Except, it didn't open. You feel the engine shutter off and hear a heavy metal door close behind it. You find a crack to peer through and take a look around. Its a big room, no windows, and no people that she could see. You spend the next fifteen minutes waiting for something to happen, for someone to open your box so you can jump out and beat the crap out of them, but nothing happens. Then you notice an ominous white fog seeping through the cracks of the box. It rolls along the floor and slowly rises up to fill the crate.

Well, there goes your plan. Since you're unconscious, I'll just go ahead and tell you whats about to happen. After the gas knocks you out, some people in protective gear and masks will show up and open all the boxes- about thirty in total, with two to three Oysters per box. They'll give you all this injection that will put you in a dormant stage- barely alive. A shell of a person, really.

You'll be taken to a special room where you'll do nothing but stand, have your emotions drained from you, and maybe drool a little. Everything you're made to feel will seep into the special floors of this room, where your emotions will be carefully processed and concentrated into a liquid form before being sold on the black market. Its an expensive and difficult task to master, but hey, demand is demand. And here, demand just happens to be human emotions. I thought when the first factory like this one blew up, they would get the message and go experience their own emotions rather than suck them out of innocent people they snatch through the Looking Glass. I guess I was wrong.

Oh, by the way-

Welcome to Wonderland.

* * *

**A/N**: I know I said I would stop with the second/first person stuff but I kinda like it...


	3. Through the Looking Glass

I know you remember the girl you saw just before you passed out. You don't forget faces, especially not ones that are so shockingly similar to the characters you see in your dreams. As for whether she was real or not: it doesn't matter. All that matters is she's your best shot at waking up. So before you hate her for the blonde hair, blue eyes, and small stature that so perfectly resembles that of the cold and calculating Red Queen (actually, all that's missing is a bejeweled red crown and absurdly high heels), remind yourself you've never actually met her before. For all you know, she could be the polar opposite of the Queen you know and despise. Or perhaps this is she, and you simply don't know her Majesty as well as you think you do.

That night, her seeing you get drugged and abducted in that alleyway was mere coincidence, if you're one to believe in such things. She wasn't following you, or even interested in you, for that matter. She was trailing your buddy Will in case he ran into trouble. If you'd known him for long enough, he would have told you the best thieves never work alone. He practically lives by that motto, and he wasn't breaking his rule when he stole your wallet.

Anastasia was there for backup, if you will, just in case something went wrong. Except by wrong, they had expected maybe someone would catch Will stealing something from their pocket and cause trouble. Make a scene. Start a fight. Call the police. Something predictable. But being ambushed by a group of professionals with syringes and a big black van? Fat lot of good Ana and her three inch switchblade would do.

Always having been better at careful strategizing and calculation than immediate action, she ducks into a doorway before she's seen and watches as they take first the girl with the lovely long hair Will had just stolen from, then Will, and stuffs them into the back of the van where the bodies of other unconscious victims has begun to pile up. Her head spins as she tries to cough up some sort of plan, but the best she can do is follow the van full of ambushers and their victims as it rolls along ominously down the empty street.

It seems Will was the last catch of the night; Ana watches as the car stops in front of a large mirror lying on its side, forgotten, on the corner of a street. She looks on as the people in black- she counts seven in total, at least two of which are women- get out of the van in pairs, each couple carrying an unconscious body between them. And then she watches as they walk through the glass.

_Through_ it.

As in, they just walked through a solid glass mirror as if it were an open door.

Ana blinks and shakes her head, watching as the next pair follow, and the next. Three go in, two come out, and this pattern carries on until there's no one left in the trunk to take out. Brushing it off as some kind of optical illusion, a trick of the eye caused by the angle she was witnessing it from, maybe, she turns her attention back to the criminals. The one she assumes is the head turns to a scrawny man with hunched shoulders and a balding scalp and hands him a set of keys. "Park it and be back in thirty minutes. And remember to turn the Looking Glass off when you're done this time."

"Yes sir," he mumbles and strolls towards the van as the other six file through the mirror. He turns the ignition and the engine rumbles in response. He can't drive very well - which turns out to be an advantage for Anastasia - there was little chance she could lose a car moving at a speed less than five miles per hour, and she assumes he'll be paying more attention to avoiding the trash piles he keeps accidentally running over than to someone lurking in the shadows of his rearview mirror.

It takes the driver about twenty minutes to reach his destination, which turns out to be a little dead end off some backwoodsy dirt road. By the looks of it, this is part of a half-finished neighborhood that had long since been forgotten. There are a few houses lined up along the sides of the street, most of which aren't even whole, and all of which she could easily picture decorating the landscape in the background of a horror movie.

Ana crouches behind the van as the engine sputters to a stop, absently toying with the knife in her pocket as the car door opens and she listens as two feet crunch the pavement. The headlights shine brighter for a second and then go out as the doors lock automatically with a soft _click_. She counts his footsteps as he approaches, knowing the key to doing this right is all in the timing. His pace is slow, leisurely and heavy, clearly in no rush to get back to his friends through the mirror. Its maddening, actually, but she somehow manages to scrunge up just enough patience to wait. If she messes this up, she's got no chance of finding Will and she knows it.

After what must have been a decade or two at the very least, he's close enough that she can see the tips of his shoes under the car. She puts her faith in the cricket's song to muffle her movements as she adjusts her feet, silently begging him not to turn around as he takes one, two steps past her, and…

She pounces. Whipping her switchblade out of her pocket, she springs forward, one hand landing on his shoulder to pull him back and stabilize herself as the other arm swings around his neck. She lets the blade brush ever so lightly underneath his chin, just enough to let him know it's there.

"The rules are simple," she whispers, "If you move, I'll kill you. If you lie, I'll kill you. If you scream, I'll kill you. Understand?" She's fairly sure the last instruction isn't necessary- there's no sign of life around these parts for miles. Still, for all she knows there could be some secret headquarters back here, and the last thing she needs is to get herself outnumbered. "You can talk," she says, loosening up a bit on the blade.

"Yeah. Ok," his voice is just as slow and slurred as his stride had been, which Ana finds kind of impressive, and kind of irritating.

"Good. Those people you took, where are they now?"

"We're shipping 'em off to a factory back in our realm."

"Realm? What's that, like a roleplaying thing for psycho kidnappers?"

"Realm as in another world. Wonderland."

"You have about ten seconds to give me a real answer before I carve out a nice, deep hole in your throat."

"I'm tellin' you the truth," he says and this time she can hear the tiniest bit of panic in his voice.

She scowls. She can't kill him yet, not unless she's ready to give up on Will. So she plays along. "Right, okay, how does one get to this 'Wonderland?'"

"There's a mirror about a half mile from here. Its a portal from our world to this one."

"Right, and I'm a talking rabbit," she growls, tightening her grip on the knife and applying just enough pressure to hear him choke as she compresses his airway. "Remember that rule we made about lying?"

He struggles to speak for a moment (and she doesn't give on the pressure) before eventually managing to choke out, "I'm- tellin'- th- the truth."

Anastasia twists her jaw and draws a long breath as she weighs out her options. Finally, she lets her arm around his neck go slack and listens to him gasp for air. She didn't enjoy this. Really, she didn't. But desperate people tended to do desperate things to get what they want. And it wasn't as if she was attacking anyone who didn't deserve it, anyway. "I want your keys. Don't move; just tell me which pocket."

Fifteen minutes later, the man is tied up with some cable cords she had found in the back and locked in the trunk of the van for one of his colleagues to find once they realize he's gone. Provided they care, that is.

Her eyes now travel up and down the length of the mirror, scanning every inch of the slightly scratched, severely smudged mirror. She examines the cheap, gilded frame of the glass, which was chipped and worn down, its swirly design crumbling around the edges. She's looking for a lever, she thinks, or maybe a knob of some sort, hidden in the framework. But there's nothing. At least, nothing she can see.

Well, there is one last thing she can try.

"This is ridiculous," she mutters as she focuses on her own reflection in the glass and, tightening her jaw, extends one hand to touch its surface. It passes through without resistance of any kind. It takes her a few moments to process this. She wiggles her fingers, hidden somewhere on the other side of the mirror, and its as if there was never anything in her way.

In the sudden realization that she had no idea what- or who- was on the other side of this portal thing, she jerks her hand back. She knows if she gives herself enough time to think this through logically, there's no way she'll be able to convince herself to step into this mirror. And so, taking advantage of the fact she's still has the nerve to go through with this, she squeezes her eyes shut and steps into the mirror.

Her feet touch the ground just as they would had she been going for a walk in the park rather than crossing worlds. Behind her, there's an object that looks to be a cross between a giant mirror and some kind of high-tech machinery.

Okay seriously, what the hell?

She takes a moment to regroup as she looks around. She got lucky: there's nobody in sight. The room she's just appeared in has white walls and a low ceiling. Its a narrow corridor and has no windows or doors. There has to be light coming from somewhere, because the hallway is very well illuminated, yet she can see no light fixtures or places in which sunlight would be allowed to creep in. If there is a sun here. If there's even an outside here.

Needless to say, she's never traveled _trans-realm_ before. She's hardly the expert on any of this.

She takes a cautious step forward, pausing when her first light footstep echoes against the walls. Nothing happens- no futuristic alarm bells blare, no booby traps shoot out from the walls, no ceilings collapse in on her- so she begins to walk again, ignoring the way the pure white walls are starting to make her head spin. At the end of the corridor, she finds another identical one running perpendicular. In both directions, it looks the same as the hall with the mirror. Except, of course, no mirror.

Anastasia chooses a direction at random and follows the path to her next intersection. Again and again, she weaves through this maze, going left, right, right again, left, right, and just when she's beginning to think there's no way out, she makes another right and sees the exit. If nothing else, at least there will be no more white washed hallways leading to nowhere from here on out.

She walks out into the open air, grateful for the light breeze that instantly hits her skin and the curious, albeit somewhat dreary scenery of this new landscape. And then she gets her first taste of the sun. The minute the shadows of the trees no longer cover her, she starts to burn on the back of her shoulder. Strangely, the pain is concentrated only on that one spot.

And holy hell, it _burned_.

She cries out- partially in shock, partly in pain, and is twisting around to try and glimpse her shoulder when out of nowhere there's a hand over her mouth.

Well, what do you know? There actually _are _people here.

"Stay quiet; we're not going to hurt you," the man behind her whispers.

"Debatable," a second mutters as he steps into her range of vision. He has dark skin, a large nose, and cold eyes, and Anastasia instinctively doesn't trust him. On the other hand, the voice behind her is earnest and kind; serving to evenly counter the suspicion she holds in his partner. She nods in agreement to his terms and he drops his hand. "Follow me."

She turns around just in time to see the back of his head ducking around a corner and she trails him, keeping one hand resting on her only weapon and one eye on the dark man just inside her peripheral vision, very aware that these men could well be working with those who had swept through her neighborhood in that black van.

The taller, lighter skinned one leads the way down a path that slowly morphs from dirt to dust to, eventually, concrete, as the scenery quickly becomes more and more urban. The few trees disguising the exit of the building she'd just found her way out of thinned almost immediately into a couple of dried up old shrubs. The sunlight no longer burns her skin, and the pain pulsing through her shoulder blade dulls down to a low ache the further she's traveled. Grey and brown metallic buildings loom ahead of them and suddenly she finds herself climbing up rusty ladders and taking certain paths through what she can only assume is the sewage system of this spectacle of a city.

"You need to cover that shoulder. Let down your hair," a low voice says from behind her and she turns her head.

"What?"

"He's right," the man in front calls back. "That mark needs to be hidden, exposed it'll endanger us all."

"Fine, whatever," she shrugs and pulls out her braid, making sure it falls over the burn on her shoulder before continuing to walk.

"Its not long enough to cover the whole mark," the less tolerable one says.

"Well its less obvious now, isn't it?" she snaps as she turns to glare at him, quickly losing patience in this whole situation all together. "Where are we going? Who are you? What the hell do you people want with random strangers off the street, anyway?" she asks exasperatedly, no longer able to hold off the questions eating at her mind.

"First of all, that wasn't us, and we'll explain it all when we get there," the more tolerable one replies.

"Get where?"

"Its not too much further…"

"That wasn't an answer," she mutters under her breath, yet she continues to follow him as he takes another ladder leading to a partially abandoned marketplace, where she sees the first people- beyond these two jackasses, obviously- she's come across since she stepped through the Looking Glass.

They barely receive a glance from the bystanders as they pass. He takes another vertical staircase, then another, and a third on top of that. She swears, its like they built the entire city on top of itself.

Finally, they reach a dreary little corner far from what little civilization they had passed along the way. Along the sides of the street, trash is piled up six feet tall, most of which, she notes, are little glass vials. Her guide reaches the very last doorway on the right and rattles the door knob. He pauses a moment to listen before opening it and motioning for her to go inside.

Anastasia shakes her head and plants her feet on the ground, because this is where she draws the line. "I'm not going in there. At least, not until you tell me who you are."

"Its safer inside."

"Then you'd better talk fast."

The man behind Ana scowls impatiently. "I don't see why we don't just kill her."

"Yes you do," the other says, "otherwise she'd be dead by now."

She tilts her head curiously, intrigued by him. His voice was quiet, calm, wise, and though he looked young, he spoke with a certain patience well beyond his years.

"My name is Cyrus," he turns to introduce himself. "And that is Jafar. We're both Oysters, like you."

"Pardon?"

"Foreigners. Aliens. Travelers, if you will, lost in a world unknown." Her face must display her confusion, because he continues, "The sunlight here, it brands us as imposters, leaving a signature mark on our skin." He tugs up his sleeve to reveal an intricate black design stretching up his upper arm and reaching towards the top of his shoulder.

Anastasia hesitates. "That's… that's what's on my back?" her brow furrows.

Cyrus nods. "Yes. Jafar has one too, identical. The three of us got lucky, you see, we were marked in places easily concealed. Not everyone is so fortunate." For purposes of clarification, he adds, "Imagine trying to hide a tattoo like this on your face."

"I take it us tourists aren't welcome here?"

"On the contrary, we're very welcome here. In a peaceful, dormant state in laboratories and factories, being harvested for our emotions. We would exist there as a shell of a human being, hence our name, Oysters."

"Hypothetically," Ana begins in a softer voice, finding that, much to her surprise, she actually believes this bullshit, "would these people invade a neighborhood of Oysters and pick innocent people off the street, for that reason?"

Cyrus nods grimly. Anastasia looks down, thinking back to what the man she'd threatened had said. "Is this place really called Wonderland?"

"Enough of this foolishness," Jafar growls, grabbing Ana's arm and yanking her inside the house before she can so much as utter a word in protest.

"Hey!" she stumbles forward to find her footing before whirling around to glare at him, seething. "You coulda just asked!"

"Let me make one thing clear. The only reason you're still breathing is because Cyrus and I saved your arse from a group of patrolling natives. We will continue to do so, so long as your purpose outlives your pestilence. So if you hold any value in your own life, I suggest you shut up and do as your told from this point forward. Understood?"

She narrows her eyes and lifts her chin defiantly, and neither of them moves until Cyrus enters and closes the door behind him with a click. Without breaking eye contact with Jafar, Anastasia says icily, "What purpose, Cyrus?"

He takes a moment to answer, sifting through his thoughts and Ana shifts her gaze to look at him with an arched eyebrow. "I know all of this must be.. disorienting, to take in at once," he begins, "and I know I haven't given you much reason to trust me. There are eyes and ears everywhere here, I couldn't talking on the way over here. But, if you'll let me, I'd like to explain everything now."


End file.
